The Worst Werewolf

by Jacqueline Rohrbach

  “Now I know what you’re thinking,” Garvey continued while he pulled on his pants, stopping the narrative to include Tovin, a polite host. “Why not eat them all? Well, that’s what I would have done at some point, and those were the good days, but now the Boo Hags have all these rules and policies about who you can kill and eat, where you can kill and eat them, how much time you spend killing and eating them. If you violate any of the damn rules, you have to fill out forms and go before a council. It’s all so civilized.” He rolled his eyes, tilted his head up, and sighed. “I prefer therapy.”

  “Oh.” It felt stupid, and Tovin was sure it sounded clueless as well, but how did one engage in social rituals and niceties with a something?

  The wolf simply clucked his tongue and ignored the response. “Okay, now that we’ve had our chat, are you ready to go, sweet treat?” When Tovin made no response other than to curl himself into a tight ball—assuming go was some type of standard euphemism for are you ready to die?—the brown eyes narrowed slightly, the first time the werewolf looked anything other than bored, and again, “Let’s go.” A direct, emphatic hand gesture. This way.

  “Go where?” Tovin shook his head. It didn’t make sense.

  “To the van. I’m not going to carry you. That ankle doesn’t look that bad, and I’m not the type of werewolf who lugs people around.”

  There was a van? When Tovin said nothing and did not move, the werewolf grew impatient. “Did your jog through the woods shake something loose in your brain? To the van, sweet treat. This way.” When Tovin failed to move or respond, the werewolf’s gestures became more agitated and the expression less good-humored.

  “All right, then.” Long legs covered the distance between them in seconds, and Tovin was brought to his feet too quickly. The sudden jounce hooked his head to the side and sent the glasses flopping to the ground. Garvey sighed and let go of his arm as he bent to retrieve them.

  Of course the twisted ankle gave out, and Tovin fell to the dirt with an undignified “thump” and then a “whump” as the air pushed out of his body. The glasses were thrown alongside him. “Okay, here you go. Put them on and look at me.” Tovin complied. Brown eyes—reflecting some gold—took another inventory and grew hard. “Now get up and walk, sweet treat.”

  “Can’t.” Tovin pointed to his ankle and then thought, Also my ribs, and my knees, and my entire left side of my body since you dropped me on it, you total dick. “Why? Eat me here. I’m not going to run, and I’m not going to walk. I’m here. You’re here. We’re here. Seems like we have all the necessary elements for this event to occur. So kill me here or carry me to your damn van.” Tovin paused. “Asshole.”

  Garvey maintained eye contact through Tovin’s entire spiel, but once it was out, he dropped his head. The pain and the fear caught up, gained the upper hand over the desire to die in a somewhat dignified manner. There was a pause, and Tovin kept his head bowed to the ground, willing himself to remain with himself a bit longer, to not think too much about the mechanics of being eaten. It was tough. He was a mechanics and process sort of guy.

  Nothing happened for what seemed an eternity in scared-shitless time. When Tovin finally willed himself to look up, Garvey appeared to be making the rounds in his own head. He stared off into space while rolling his tongue along the roof of his mouth. Two more howls once again caught his attention. Garvey howled back in four quick, disjointed bursts of, Woo, Woo, Woo, Wooooooo! For a moment, Tovin could imagine he just said, Hold up a tick! in wolf language.

  The other wolves howled back, theirs long and protracted.

  Garvey rolled his eyes and complained, “So impatient, those two.” When he saw Tovin looking up at him, his face split open in the same confident, swagger grin from earlier—now with sharper teeth. Softer hands gathered Tovin in an embrace, and he felt himself being lifted—first his upper body and then his legs.

  “Sweet treat, if I were going to kill and eat you, you’d be dead, and I’d be digesting you by now. There are other plans for you. Now, I’m going to take you to the van, and you’re going to go along unless you can think of a better, independent plan that doesn’t involve running away because—and now I’m being frank—that is never going to work out for you.”

  Tovin was out of responses, so he relaxed while his once-date carried him, allowing his mind to linger on the smell—almost like wet sagebrush—and feel of a body next to his. “Time for some real magic.” Before Tovin could ask him what he meant, a large hand covered his eyes and most of his head. Tovin heard some strange words and felt his body relax and his brain shut down. There was a moment when he woke up propped against something soft and a strap was brought down around him, and he dimly realized, I’m in a car.

  No, he was in a minivan. Not a modern-day, trying-to-be-cool-young-couple’s minivan. It was a your-mom-in-mom-jeans minivan admitting, I give up…I’m a minivan. As much as he could respect the practicality of such a vehicle, Tovin couldn’t help but feel a little confused. Was he being abducted or was he on his way to soccer practice?

  Kidnapped as it turned out.

  Garvey fanned large knuckles across Tovin’s cheek and said, “Sorry, sweet treat.” Then a door slid into place. There was a metallic thud above Tovin’s head, a curled fist hitting the roof of the car, universal for Good to go.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: BLAME IT ON GARVEY

  Yuri and Nadine were well on their way to the distribution center with the heavily sedated humans sleeping behind them. Yuri looked in the mirror to check in on the crop, a small reassurance that everything else had gone according to plan. There was Tovin. Yuri’s eyes narrowed when she got a glimpse of his battered face. The reflection tore at her for a variety of reasons. Right now she had to focus on the primary concern—she and Nadine were in some seriously deep shit. Her companion was too much of an in-the-moment wolf to realize it.

  Small circles of smoke made their way past Nadine’s mouth from time to time. She attempted to indulge in her habit in a way that didn’t draw too much attention. Despite her best efforts, it was clear what she was doing. As always, she overlooked minor details, such as opening a window to let the smoke out. Giving her friend a pointed look, Yuri rolled hers down; fresh air whooshed through the van. So far, Nadine had at least repressed her chatter until, finally, she broke with a strained voice. “I’ll handle Lavario.”

  Yuri snorted. Like hell she would.

  “He’s a softie. I’ll tell him…” she made little circles in the air with her hand, trying to draw inspiration, “Tovin wasn’t fully drugged, woke up, Garvey chased him, and he fell a few times. No biggie. All Garvey’s fault. Maybe we’ll just be looking at a formal reprimand.”

  Yuri snorted again.

  “I hate it when you do this. Talk to me, Yur.”

  “Why did Garvey do this?”

  Nadine shrugged her shoulders and took another drag. She was a soldier. As far as she was concerned, the big picture only involved her as she was ordered in and out of it. The rest of the time it was a backdrop for a smoke break. She gave the first answer that came to her mind. “He was horny?”

  “It wasn’t suspicious to you that it’s Lavario’s servant?”

  “No.”

  Yuri gave her a long, level look. Lavario and Garvey had more history than Rome. Practically everything the False Moon bastard did was to annoy his maker in some way, and if he wasn’t trying to annoy Lavario, he was trying to get under someone else’s skin.

  Nadine grimaced. “I mean, a little, but this isn’t the first time. He likes to have fun.”

  “He likes to have fun.” Yuri mimicked her then flexed her hands to push her claws outward. It gave her satisfaction when Nadine leaned farther onto the passenger-side door. “What are we going to do if Tovin gets rejected?”

  Something finally clicked in her head. “Shit.”

  “Uh huh.”

  She twisted in her seat to give Tovin another glance over. “Erghhh!”

  “Yup.”

  “L
avario is going to beat us half to death.”

  “That old softie?”

  Nadine turned pale enough that the freckles on the bridge of her nose started to melt together. Her hands developed a mind of their own and flapped up and down, joints snapping with the force of it. “Shit. Shit. Shit. What are we going to do?”

  Yuri didn’t know. Rules governed all aspects of the pickup and distribution of humans. Those regulations were in place to make sure the process went in a smooth, orderly way. Problems were dealt with through a standardized routine that even the dumbest wolf could follow. Occasionally, humans had to be discarded, but that was inevitable in an undertaking so large and important. Yuri never thought much of it. Then, she’d never been in a situation where the extraction of a guardian’s servant went so horribly, horribly wrong.

  Tovin was a mess. Any number of theoretical solutions were available. She or Nadine could heal the boy, he could be healed at the distribution center, or Lavario could take him and heal him. Each option was against procedure for various reasons, none of which applied to their situation. A bureaucracy that Yuri could write a love letter to on most days had turned against her. Garvey would be thrilled. He frequently said, “If it made sense, it wouldn’t be called bureaucracy.” He was wise to take another van.

  Yuri sighed and extended her claws again.

  Nadine sat up with a jolt of sudden inspiration. “We could kill him now. Blame it on Garvey. That way we never had custody of him when he was alive.”

  “No.” Yuri shook her head.

  “Why not? It works. Not like anyone is going to question Garvey fucking up, doing something dumb. With the kid dead, Garvey gets beat to shit instead of us, Lavario gets a new pet. Everyone’s happy, happy, happy.”

  Yuri shot her a sour look.

  “There is something you’re not telling me here. What gives, Yur?”

  “I said no.” She pounded her fist against the wheel for emphasis.

  Nadine made some type of protracted grunting noise that went up in volume and pitch the longer it went. Doing her best to ignore her friends protesting, Yuri kept her gaze focused, straight ahead on the road. As always, Nadine’s first solution was the easy way out. Finally, her friend gave up that line. “What then? What are we going to do? He’s going to be killed anyway.”

  “Maybe not.” She looked at Tovin again. Yes, he was a mess. But. “He’s Lavario’s.”

  * * *

  Dazed, Tovin blinked a few times and tried to get his bearings. The two women from the bar were in the front seats arguing with each other. Bits and pieces of the heated discussion zipped back to him in isolated fragments. Pink Flower Dress hit the wheel—once, twice, three times. It was only a series of dull thuds to his ears, blurred movements to his eyes. Overall meaningless.

  Pain caught up to him. Tovin began to feel every cut, scratch, and gouge littered up and down his body. It took a great deal of effort not to groan, whimper, or otherwise verbalize his discomfort.

  Now what could he remember? According to Garvey, Tovin was en route to a distribution center where he’d be catalogued before being sent to his werewolf overlord. He wasn’t sure if any of that was true, the tale certainly seemed implausible. Then he remembered the forest, the way Garvey’s skin fell away until a giant wolf stood there—massive, terrifying, very real. Best case scenario, the two women were crazy people, not real werewolves. A born skeptic, Tovin had to cling to that notion to keep himself from going totally insane. No such thing as werewolves, he told himself. The wine Garvey gave me was drugged or something. These people are just crazy.

  Trapped in a van with the criminally insane probably wasn’t much better than being in a van with monsters. He was still a captive and heading to who knew where. Tovin forced himself to remain calm and appear unconscious.

  There were other people with him. All drugged from the looks of it. None of them rested in a position that could be described as comfortable or natural. One of the males, a thirty-something guy in a cheap suit, faced the wrong direction as though he had been placed there by a careless child who didn’t want to play make-believe that her dolly was a real person with joints or a spine. Two other women overlapped, with the head of one shoved firmly in the seat cushion. Tovin wondered if they had similar ill-fated nights out.

  Better safe than sorry was the creed he’d said to himself countless times before, along with prepare for the worst, hope for the best. A life without risk—work, bar trivia, Matlock reruns, then bed—and ritualized living from the socks he wore each day to the meals he ate in the evening. Tovin thought he was tired of it. His date with Garvey was going to be the start of something new. Oh dear, Garvey had said. Now Tovin knew why.

  None of it mattered anymore. The situation was what it was. Tovin focused on listening, hoping to pick up some detail that would get his ass out of this mess.

  “We need to kill him, Yur. They’re not going to budge on the rules. Not even for Lavario.”

  That came through loud and clear.

  Tovin did the only thing he could think of at that point. He unbuckled himself, opened the door, and fell out.

  * * *

  “What the fuck was that?” Nadine twisted in her seat.

  “What?!” Yuri shouted back at her before continuing her tirade. “If you’d just think this through instead of just doing whatever Garvey—”

  “Oh shit. The boy bailed, Yur.”

  Yuri slammed on the breaks and looked back at the empty seat where Tovin was supposed to be. “But he was drugged. Motherfucker must have used magic!”

  “The kid?” Nadine looked at her in disbelief. “You think he teleported?”

  Restraint. Restraint. Restraint. Yuri felt white-hot heat saturate her entire being. She loved Nadine, but sometimes her friend could be so dense. “NO. Garvey used magic.” Her companion continued to stare, perplexed. “On the boy. Instead of drugging him.”

  Now she got it. “That dickcheese rat bastard!”

  That pretty much summed up Yuri’s feelings. Magical slumber was only effective for a short period. The evolutionary purpose of it was to prevent prey from screaming, attracting unwanted attention to the hunter. Typical of Garvey, he’d used it to fuck with people.

  Tovin couldn’t have gotten very far. Yuri got out of the car, sniffed the air, taking in the smells—the pine, the burnt rubber, and finally the traces of cheap cologne that she knew to be the scent of the boy. “This way,” she jerked her head to the right. “Come on.” Nadine followed half-heartedly.

  Mess before, catastrophe now. Tovin was somehow awake and alive, lying on the ground moaning and clutching at his side then at his leg where a bone stuck out at the shin. Yuri cradled him. The boy’s green eyes were squeezed shut. That was probably for the best. She didn’t want to see them right now.

  Joyful, Nadine clapped her hands together with a snap. “Leave him. Drive over him. This is a gift from the Goddess. The kid fell out of the car…and died. Tragic. Bummer. Sorry, Lavario.” She shrugged. “The universe is giving us this one, Yur. It’s got a bow on it.”

  Decisions had to be made. Nadine’s position was clear. Killing the boy certainly had more advantages than disadvantages. Her friend’s simple solution was the best in this circumstance. This extraction was, at the very least, going to result in a demotion. Yuri would be lucky to end up on a novice bloodhound team after this fiasco. Tovin’s death resolved that. More than that, it kept Yuri’s secrets safe.

  Curled up in her arms, Tovin probably didn’t know what he was doing. Shock, pain, fear whirled around inside of him. Yuri felt every least bit of it through her bond with him. Perhaps, long shot that it was, he could be okay. She needed him to be okay. “Tovin, Tovin. Listen to me.”

  He moaned but opened his eyes. Yuri’s heart constricted at the fear she saw there. It wasn’t supposed to be this way for him. He was supposed to be on his way to a wonderful life, to live with one of the most powerful of their kind as a companion.

  She forced her
tone to be stern. For his sake, he needed to be afraid right now. “Do you want to die right now, or do you want to be still and quiet and maybe live?”

  Nadine flung her hands up in the air. She transformed slightly. The rest of her dress ripped off with the force of the gesture; jigsaw bits of it fluttered around her torso. She tried to piece them back together. Recognizing it was useless, she tossed her hands in the air again, and kicked out at nothing.

  Yuri ignored her. “Tovin, answer me.”

  Although she didn’t assign a numerical value to the options, the boy held up two fingers. It was understood well enough.

  “Good. Then, you’ll need to sit still and be quiet. You try to run again, you’re dead. You talk, you’re dead. You do anything other than sit in the car. Dead.” Comply or be dead. She didn’t ask if he was okay with these terms or if he understood.

  “This is the dumbest thing I think you’ve ever done.” Nadine looked down at her, at Tovin. “Someday, you’re going to explain why. For now, let me help him with the pain.”

  She couldn’t tell her friend she’d bonded with Tovin, thought of him as a son. It wouldn’t be fair to drag her into the quagmire of her situation, which only got worse. She was, however, grateful for her friend’s understanding. “Thank you, Naddie.”

  Nadine’s expression softened a bit. “We can kill him. Putting that out there.” When Yuri only gave her a grim smile in response, Nadine relented. “Okay, got any spare of the Rohypnol?”

  “No.”

  Quickly, and with surprising gentleness, Nadine eased Tovin’s pain and once again put him in a magic-induced sleep.

  CHAPTER NINE: SENSELESS BUREAUCRACY

  The building was all sharp angles and no-nonsense geometry. Squares beside squares beside rectangles. Functional. Yuri loved the design of it. Whenever she saw the edges of it peek out of the foliage, she knew she was home. Under normal circumstances, this was her favorite part of the process. Accolades were normally her due after a night of hard work. No one was going to tell her she’d done well today. She might be a False Moon wolf by the end of it. She and Garvey might even be packmates. The thought brought rage then dread.